BANNING BOATS ON OSOYOOS LAKE WILL TAKE LIFE OUT OF THIS TOWN

I am writing in response to the letters in this week and last week’s paper regarding the suggestion of banning boats on Osoyoos Lake.
I moved here 10 years ago with my family from Calgary.
I have been coming to Osoyoos since 1966 – first with my parents and then with my own family.
In 2002 I decided to buy a house and relocated my family and my business to Osoyoos. I was lucky at that time to purchase waterfront property.
There was a reason for this. I love the water and love boating.
I do not agree that boats should be banned from this lake. Maybe the huge ones, but not regular speed boats.
The lake is the major draw for people coming here every summer to enjoy themselves. Do you want to kill off this town completely?
If you take the boats out of the lake you will take the life out of Osoyoos!

19 Comments

Bill

February 29, 2012 at 7:31 pm

I assume that your reference to “regular speed boats” was a freudian slip. It’s the “regular” speed boats that are the problem. With regards to your second last line…the only killing in this town has been by boaters!
How soon we forget!

Banning speed boats will not kill this town, but it might make it much more enjoyable! I’d rather see sail boats, kayaks, and other non-motorized boats being used more. Small electric motors on fishing boats would be ok. Get the large pollution spewing motor boats off the lake. …and the town has the nerve to tell us that we can’t idle our cars for more than 3 mins while these large motorboats and seadoos can roar all over the lake for days at a time! (shakes head).

My plan is to move to Osoyoos in the future… Ban the jet skis, speed boats, the morons that ride them, alcohol inspired acts and overall stupidity. Sailboats, kayaks, and some peace and tranquility is way more peaceful and less harmful to the environment.

Let me see now…. No large motors… No large trucks to pull them… No showing off… No keep up with the Jones’s… = no tourism, no income for the town. Resorts closing their doors. No employment = people leaving town to work elsewhere…That would mean that the retired seniors trying to enjoy retirement and never having to work anymore, having to man cash registers and stocking shelves?

I love boating and have so for many years. Unfortunately, the behaviour out here is the worst of the many places I’ve boated in Canada. It seems that out here we forget that there are many types of users, not just waterskiers.

Watch the boating on Skaha, for example. Drunken boobs driving too fast, too close to shore, too close to swimmers, too close to each other. It’s aweful. One day I took my little girl out on a paddleboat. Some degenerate in a ski boat came and circled me until we were swamped. Ever try to swamp a paddle boat? It takes determination. All this less than 30 meters from shore.

Tourism is good business, but we’re not some third world destination starving for Western cash. We live in BC, the richest and best place in the country. As such, we can afford to welcome visitors without fear that if we offend them we’ll starve without their money. Let them bluster about they’ll take their money elsewhere. How arrogant. Oliver has a lot to offer, and we can afford to ask the users to sober up and slow down.

Good Point! Is anyone monitoring the orchards of what chemicals are going into the ground and then into the lake?
This would kill the lake far more than boats 4 months of a year. Chemicals are sprayed all year! No because the people in the town are blaming the boaters. This would have an impact on thier income from the vineyards! Lets see the enviromental reports, controls and regulations!
What about the US section of the lake? Who knows what going in the lake there?

I’m all in agreement with locals and tourists enjoying the lake on their boats. I love boating as well and motorcycling. The only thing is that some of the boaters could show a little more courtesy to the people, like me, who enjoy swimming in the lake, as long as they stay more in the middle of the lake as opposed to closer to the shore, that’s all.

There we were, my husband and I , in our 50,s , in our little 12 foot aluminum boat and our 4hp Evinrude motor at the far north end of the lake near Willow Beach , trying to enjoy a little fishing while almost getting swamped by these large , high horsepower ski boats with music blasting and hooting and holloring. Guess what? Here comes the RCMP. At this point I’m thinking wonderful, they are going to pull the big ski boat over and ask them to tone it down a little and ask about alcohol on board. Um no… They passed right by the big fancy boat and pulled us over. Asking the usual questions including what is in the cooler, which at the time was 2 tuna sandwiches and a bottle of water. I have a question.
If big boats get banned on the lake, and only electric and small engines would be allowed? Would that mean that I would get pulled over by a Zodiac with twin electric motors?

Exactly how large is a large engine anyways? Don’t worry folks. With the price of gas being what it is and rising, most tourists will probably just park their boats in the water, sip on a beer and admire them from a distance. God knows we get ALL our oil from Iran.

Unfortunately, there are those that spoil it for everyone. There are a lot of responsible boat owners as well as the not-so responsible. We have been going to Osoyoos Lake for 6 years every summer. We enjoy the water sports, and yes have a powerful boat but always try to respect others and hopefully have passed that on to our kids. But, I do think those boat owners are a very big part of the tourism ecomony there.

Living next to the lake for 20 years, I appreciate being able to boat for many purposes, eg waterski, fishing, sailing and just sightseeing the lake. My family and friends who visit me and spend money in our town appreciate the lake for boating fun as well. We observe the majority of boaters operate their vessels responsibly. The small percentage of newbies, drunks and yahoos can be controlled by having a regular police boat presence on the lake in the summer, unfortunately this is not happening as often as it should.

Thinking about banning boats on the Osoyoos lake is an outrageous idea. I haven’t had the chance to experience summer in Osoyoos but this year will be my first. But its obvious that taking the boats away will also drive thousands of people away.

Our family has been hostage not only to the irresponsibility, speed and ‘too close to the shore’ driving of boaters but also to the booming high volume midnight parties in our ear, losing sleep on what should be peaceful summer nights – and our home is elevated and situated about a block UP and out from the lake.

We have always thought it would be nice to have at least one end of the lake set aside for ‘quiet’ – bird watching, kayaking, sailing etc. Especially since its already quiet with no development at Willow Beach. There should also be a ‘quiet’ area south of Hayne’s Point as there is a sort of sanctuary happening there at this time. It’s not just about people – doesn’t it make sense to leave the fish and wildlife alone and safe for a section of our lake?

There must be space left for the louder boats, but it should be kept to daytime hours and should it be to a specific area it will give them freedom to scream up and down the lake if they need and at the same time the rest of us can know when to avoid them

Banning boats WOULD only speed up the death of this town imo that started years ago with the ” french invasion ” and city council’s attempt to suck every $$$ possible out of tourists ( while providing practically no services @ all ) unless you consider building MORE unoccupied condos for people to buy ( and conversely tax $$$$) on the only bits and pieces of public beach access left …. what a joke …. they are doing a good enuf job shooting themselves in the foot …. yeah let’s spend a gazillion $$$ make the sidewalks wider so for 2 MONTHS OF THE YEAR ONLY…. merchants that cant suck tourists into buying their overpriced junk…. maybe if they trip over it they will buy it….. what marketing school did you graduate from …..

What I’d like to know is why the current boating rules and regulations are not enforced? Instead of banning boats, why not just have patrols a little more often? I have been out on the lake with our little boat numerous times, and I have never seen a patrol boat. Seems to me that just having a visible police presence would deter those “bad apples” that cause problems on the lake.

I’d also like to know why there seems to be no one noticing the many people jumping off the bridge into the lake right by the warning sign. I see young people constantly climbing over the railing and leaping in. Someone is going to get seriously hurt there, but the police seem not to notice it at all.

I think – all in all – there needs to be a much stronger police presence in town during the summer. They seem to be too busy waiting for vehicular violations on the highway between Osoyoos and Oliver rather than taking care of problems in town. Perhaps if they paid more attention to what’s happening on the lake, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place.

its quite straight forward whos causeing trouble and whos not .the out of towners with there big expensive boats ,with the music on full over loaded with partyers,most likely haveing something to do with drinken beach(we all know what beach that is) ya policeing, they need to target those people,and leave the town regular boaters alone ,and the cops cant say they cant tell the differance between the two,i do agree there is alot of ignorance on our lake,and town people in boatshave to put up with our over populated ignorant tourist town every summer,but banning boat motars from our lake is ignorance to the people who support this town all year round…. POLICE you no who to target on our lake lets get with it allready!!!!!

Since I was the dude who appeared before town council, I can say with authority that there have been some on here who never bothered to read the report. At NO TIME was it suggested that all boats be banned.

What was suggested was that boats with large engines – over 100 or 200 hp – be phased out over a 5 year period so that our heavily polluted lake can recover and so that it becomes safer over time, not more dangerous and more noisy and more more damaging to the environment.

Is that such a radical suggestion? For a town that prides itself on being “green,” when it comes down to the crunch, it’s still old school and anything but green.